Posted by
The Gimlet Eye on Sunday, November 22, 2009 12:00:00 AM
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Many of our current problems can be attacked from a number of angles, but one of the most important is what the news media is reporting. A little more investigative reporting by the our news organizations on what is really going on in D.C. and the state capitals would certainly help!
Too often, the “news” we get is soft, non-confrontational, “politically correct,” propaganda. It’s pretty, it’s pleasant, it’s “happy talk” of the early morning talk show variety, and it’s meant to make us FEEL GOOD.
Hogwash. That is not what the news is for. It is meant to inform a free people living in a republic about what is going on in their world. How else can we the people make informed decisions without a responsible press? How else can we disenthrall ourselves of falsehood?
But there is so much that is left unsaid in the “mainstream press.” Often, we have to “read between the lines,” SOMETHING OUR SCHOOLS DO NOT TEACH. Too often, only precisely such “missing” information can assist citizens to exercise their rights forthrightly and intelligently.
For many years, newspapers were practically the only way to find out what was going on in the world that was “up to the minute.” This is no longer the case with the advent of the internet, but news organizations still have a huge responsibility for informing the public. In my opinion, far too many of them have failed miserably to fulfill their responsibility as the “Third Estate.”
It’s ok for them to have their typical bias and point of view in their opinion pages. But “the slant” far too often spills over into the news pages as well, both by virtue of what appears there, AND BY VIRTUE OF WHAT DOES NOT.
As the Romans used to say: in cauda venenum*
*watch out for the part you can’t see